Unpacking boxes

We're in that odd place, that mildly unsettling period of settling-in, of re-arranging the flat now that much of Spike's gear has arrived: an industrial sewing machine (with an oil sump, no less); tray upon tray of glass rods of every conceivable colour; a pancake pan, compact discs, books and all the rest. As we re-order our belongings Spike has started to rummage through some of the boxes I brought with me from Scotland ... almost 10 years ago! Some of what's been sitting in cardboard for a decade has gone straight in the bin. Other material surfaces, which I'll hang on to; mildly surprising as one recollects it.

Opening a box in which a 1990's sound system has been harbouring since emigrating, Spike found bundles of old bills (unopened) and sheet after sheet of poetry I had written, all stuffed around the tape deck and CD-player. They come from my time living in Dulwich Hill, where I went to live after Susi and I split up the first time. Hurriedly packed, I imagine, as we relocated to this apartment (nearly five years ago now) my poetic gems have been in hiding ever since.

I came upon these two poems this morning, sitting together on one of the crumpled sheets of paper. T S Eliot, they are not but I've written worse (and will do so again).

Some Might Call This Folly

We may lose ourselves in silence
made up of nothing
but vanity's insane pre=occupation
with figments;
slivers of imagination
laboured much too hard
in reckless pursuit
of fantastic might have beens
we create from nothing
but our wishful thinking,

our insatiable appetite,
which some might call our folly,
some delusion.

But dreamers never give up dreaming
nor do our foolish hearts contented lie.

The lease of life

Sitting in this rented house
late at night,
well past the witching hour;

home seems distant now,
.........so very far away.

Dwelling in that other country,
I cannot recognise
the lodger I've become

and I have absolutely no idea
to whom the rent is due.